Investigation of the efficiency of regenerative cooling of the ramjet combustor by gasification products of energy-intensive material

The results of mathematical modeling of the thermal state of combustion chambers with regenerative cooling for ramjet engines of promising flying vehicles are presented. The cooling of combustion chambers by the gasification products of a combined charge of the energy-intensive material is considered, where the polyethylene is used as a stuff, and the HMX-based compounds are used as the active substance. The flow rates of the cooling eneregy-intensive material are determined, which provide acceptable levels of temperatures of combustion chambers at various modes of engines operation are determined.     

Combustion oscillations in gas fired appliances: Eigen-frequencies and stability regimes

This paper presents a one-dimensional acoustic model for prediction of the frequencies of self-excited oscillation and acoustic mode shapes in combustion systems. The impedance of the combustion system is represented in terms of a frequency response function (FRF). Impedances of the settling and combustion chambers are predicted by using the acoustic model, taking into account the temperature distribution in the combustion chamber. Reasonably good agreement between measured and predicted acoustic resonance frequencies and mode shapes was achieved. Some data on stability regimes are discussed.     

注蒸汽燃气轮机燃烧室和后燃室中燃料系数的计算方法

注蒸汽燃气轮机燃烧室和后燃室中燃料系数的计算方法杨玉顺，周伏秋，严家（哈尔滨工业大学动力工程系哈尔滨１５０００１）关键词：注蒸汽燃气轮机循环，湿燃气，燃料系数，注蒸汽比一、前言燃气轮机燃烧室（或后燃室）出口的燃气温度，是一个很重要的性能参数。它受设备...     

Scaling of the flow field in a combustion chamber with agas——gas injector

The scaling of the flowfield in a gas--gas combustion chamber is investigated theoretically, numerically and experimentally. To obtain the scaling criterion of the gas--gas combustion flowfield, formulation analysis of the three-dimensional (3D) Navier--Stokes equations for a gaseous multi-component mixing reaction flow is conducted and dimensional analysis on the gas--gas combustion phenomena is also carried out. The criterion implies that the size and the pressure of the gas--gas combustion chamber can be changed. Based on the criterion, multi-element injector chambers with different geometric sizes and at different chamber pressures ranging from 3~MPa to 20~MPa are numerically simulated. A multi-element injector chamber is designed and hot-fire tested at five chamber pressures from 1.64~MPa to 3.68~MPa. Wall temperature measurements are used to understand the similarity of combustion flowfields in the tests. The results have verified the similarities between combustion flowfields under different chamber pressures and geometries, with the criterion applied.     

Emission of carbon oxides during the combustion of lean methane-air premixed mixtures

A one-dimensional problem of propagation of a laminar flame front through a uniform methane-air mixture was solved using the GRI-Mech 3.0 reaction mechanism. An analysis of the composition of the combustion products behind the flame front at a pressure of 10 atm, an initial mixture temperature of 600 K, and two values of the air-to-fuel equivalence ratio (α = 1.8 and 2.5) was performed. It was demonstrated that, at short residence times, the carbon oxide emission increases as the mixture is made leaner, with the opposite tendency being observed at long residence times. Numerical calculations of the characteristics of turbulent flow and combustion in two axisymmetric homogeneous-combustion model chambers with relatively long residence times were performed within the framework of a bulk (quasi-laminar) combustion model. In calculations, the methane-air mixture composition and the wall temperature of one of the chambers were varied. The case of cooling air inflow through the chamber wall was considered. It was demonstrated that, over a wide range of parameters in the combustion chamber and on its wall, the CO emission monotonically decreases as the degree of mixture leaning grows, but it increases when the chamber wall is cooled and when cooling air is blown through the wall.     

In-water gas combustion for thrust production

The paper presents the results of experimental study for hydrodynamic processes occurring during combustion of a stoichiometric mixture propane-oxygen in combustion chambers with different configurations and submerged into water. The pulses of force acting upon a thrust wall were measured for different geometries: cylindrical, conic, hemispherical, including the case of gas combustion near a flat thrust wall. After a single charge of stoichiometric mixture propane-oxygen is burnt near the thrust wall, the process of cyclic generation of force pulses develops. The first pulse is generated due to pressure growth during gas combustion, and the following pulses are the result of hydrodynamic pulsations of the gaseous cavity. Experiments demonstrated that efficient generation of thrust occurs if all bubble pulsations are used during combustion of a single gas combustion. In the series of experiments, the specific impulse on the thrust wall was in the range 10⁴–10⁵ s (10⁵–10⁶ m/s) with account for positive and negative components of impulse.     

雾化角对液体火箭发动机燃烧室压力振荡的影响

针对液氧/煤油火箭发动机模型燃烧室实现了三维非稳态两相燃烧过程的数值模拟,得到的燃烧室截面平均压力和平均速度与实验吻合。在初边值条件不施加任何扰动的情况下,得到了燃烧室压力自激振荡过程,并研究了液氧和煤油喷嘴雾化角对燃烧室压力振荡的影响。计算结果表明:当雾化角为40°或120°时,由于燃料与氧化剂喷雾锥重叠区域较小或较大,导致了推进剂混合很差或很好,不易在燃烧室头部出现局部爆炸性的可燃混气团,致使燃烧室压力振荡强度较弱;而当雾化角为中间值65°时,易于出现爆炸性的可燃气团并导致剧烈的压力振荡,使燃烧室中出现燃烧不稳定性。因此,雾化角的合理设计是抑制燃烧不稳定性的一种途径。     

Scaling of heat transfer in gas-gas injector combustor

The scaling of heat transfer in gas-gas injector combustor is investigated theoretically, numerically and experimentally based on the previous study on the scaling of gas-gas combustion flowfield. The similarity condition of the gas-gas injector combustor heat transfer is obtained by conducting a formulation analysis of the boundary layer Navier-Stokes equations and a dimensional analysis of the corresponding heat transfer phenomenon. Then, a practicable engineering scaling criterion of the gas-gas injector combustor heat transfer is put forward. The criterion implies that when the similarity conditions of inner flowfield are satisfied, the size and the pressure of gas-gas combustion chamber can be changed, while the heat transfer can still be qualitatively similar to the distribution trend and quantitatively correlates well with the size and pressure as q ∝ pc0 .8d t-0.2. Based on the criterion, single-element injector chambers with different geometric sizes and at different chamber pressures ranging from 1 MPa to 20 MPa are numerically simulated. A single-element injector chamber is designed and hot-fire tested at seven chamber pressures from 0.92 MPa to 6.1 MPa. The inner wall heat flux are obtained and analysed. The numerical and experimental results both verified the scaling criterion in gas-gas injector combustion chambers under different chamber pressures and geometries.     

Acoustic modeling of perforated plates with bias flow for Large-Eddy Simulations

The study of the acoustic effect of perforated plates by Large-Eddy Simulations is reported. The ability of compressible Large-Eddy Simulations to provide data on the flow around a perforated plate and the associated acoustic damping is demonstrated. In particular, assumptions of existing models of the acoustic effect of perforated plate are assessed thanks to the Large-Eddy Simulations results. The question of modeling the effect of perforated plates is then addressed in the context of thermo-acoustic instabilities of gas turbine combustion chambers. Details are provided about the implementation, validation and application of a homogeneous boundary condition modeling the acoustic effect of perforated plates for compressible Large-Eddy Simulations of the flow in combustions chambers cooled by full-coverage film cooling.     

Scaling study of the combustion performance of gasben gas rocket injectors

To obtain the key subelements that may influence the scaling of gas-gas injector combustor performance, the combustion performance subelements in a liquid propellant rocket engine combustor are initially analysed based on the results of a previous study on the scaling of a gas-gas combustion flowfield. Analysis indicates that inner wall friction loss and heat-flux loss are two key issues in gaining the scaling criterion of the combustion performance. The similarity conditions of the inner wall friction loss and heat-flux loss in a gas-gas combustion chamber are obtained by theoretical analyses. Then the theoretical scaling criterion was obtained for the combustion performance, but it proved to be impractical. The criterion conditions, the wall friction and the heat flux are further analysed in detail to obtain the specific engineering scaling criterion of the combustion performance. The results indicate that when the inner flowfields in the combustors are similar, the combustor wall shear stress will have similar distributions qualitatively and will be directly proportional to p_c^0.8 d_t^-0.2 quantitatively. In addition, the combustion peformance will remain unchanged. Furthermore, multi-element injector chambers with different geometric sizes and at different pressures are numerically simulated and the wall shear stress and combustion efficiencies are solved and compared with each other. A multi-element injector chamber is designed and hot-fire tested at several chamber pressures and the combustion performances are measured in a total of nine hot-fire tests. The numerical and experimental results verified the similarities among combustor wall shear stress and combustion performances at different chamber pressures and geometries, with the criterion applied.     

Large Eddy Simulation of a swirl stabilized spray flame

Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of kerosene spray combustion in an axial-swirl combustor have been carried out focusing on the effect of the evaporating droplets on the flame temperature and species concentrations. The LES-PDF methodology is used for both dispersed (liquid) and gas phases. The liquid phase is described using a Lagrangian formulation whilst an Eulerian approach is employed for the gas phase. The predictive capability of LES with sub-grid scale models for spray dispersion and evaporation is assessed placing emphasis on the effect of the unresolved velocity and temperature fields on the droplet evaporation rate. The results of the fully coupled LES formulation exhibit good agreement between the measured and simulated mean velocity fields. The global behaviour of the spray combustion, such as droplet dispersion and evaporation, are captured reasonably well in the simulations. It was found that the large velocity fluctuations observed in the shear layer strongly affect the evaporation rate and thus the temperature distributions. The present work also demonstrated the feasibility of LES to study complex flow features which are typical of gas-turbine combustion chambers.     

Efficient time-resolved thermal characterization of single and multi-injector rocket combustion chambers

In this work, an efficient methodology for the time-resolved thermal characterization of rocket combustion chambers at reasonable computational cost is presented. The multi-scale and multi-physics numerical framework tackles simultaneously an arbitrary number of contiguous domains, either fluid or solid, and takes advantage of several modeling solutions aimed at stiffness reduction. Non-premixed turbulent combustion is handled through a flamelet-based approach accounting for non adiabatic and non equilibrium effects, thermal wall functions adapted for rocket operating conditions are employed to overcome the stiffness induced by the boundary layer, and a coupling strategy is implemented to guarantee temperature and heat flux continuity across the interfaces. The coupling strategy is based on a Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) condition, yielding the interface temperature as a result of a heat flux continuity constraint, and is then reformulated for convection-dominated phenomena, allowing for a further reduction of the computational cost. This allows for the simulation of long time windows, of industrial and experimental relevance. In particular, the solution of the chemically reactive flow is initialized with a CHT condition, and replaced, upon attainment of a statistical fluid dynamic steady state, by an equivalent convective boundary condition. The numerical framework is validated and tested by means of several 2D and 3D cases, the latter consisting in both single-element and multi-element experimental combustor chambers operating in rocket-like conditions.     

On the turbulent propagation of a flame in a closed volume

Regularities in the mutual variation of the velocity of propagation and electrical conductivity of a flame are investigated experimentally for turbulent combustion in a closed volume. An estimate proposed as a result of analysis of experimental data describes analytically the dependence of the velocity of propagation of the flame on the signal amplitude at ionization probes. In our opinion, the singularity observed on the approximate curve describing the dependence of the flame propagation velocity on the signal amplitude at ionization probes is responsible for the competition between generation and destruction of charged particles in the flame and corresponds to the conditions of quasi-stationary concentrations. The proposed method and established experimental facts can be used in the development of methods for diagnosing local intensity of burning in combustion chambers.     

Study of vortex core precession in combustion chambers

The article presents the results of experimental investigation of swirling flow of lean propane/air flame in a model combustion chamber at atmospheric pressure. To study the unsteady turbulent flow, the particle image velocimetry technique was used. It was concluded that dynamics of high swirl flows with and without combustion was determined by a global helical mode, complying with a precessing double-spiral coherent vortex structure. The studied low swirl flame had similar size and stability characteristics, but amplitude of the coherent helical structure substantially oscillated in time. The oscillations were associated with intermittently appearing central recirculation zone that was absent in the nonreacting flow. It is expected that the low swirl flow without the permanent central recirculation zone should be more sensitive to an external active control. In particular, this result may be useful for suppression of thermoacoustic resonance in combustion chambers.     

Investigation of azimuthal staging concepts in annular gas turbines

In this work, the influence of azimuthal staging concepts on the thermoacoustic behavior of annular combustion chambers is assessed theoretically and numerically. Staging is a well-known and effective method to abate thermoacoustic pulsations in combustion chambers. However, in the case of, for example, fuel staging the associated inhomogeneity of equivalence ratio may result in increased levels of NO_x emissions. In order to minimize this unwanted effect a staging concept is required in which the transfer functions of the burners are changed while affecting the equivalence ratio as little as possible. In order to achieve this goal, a theoretical framework for predicting the influence of staging concepts on pulsations has been developed. Both linear and nonlinear analytical approaches are presented and it is shown that the dynamics of azimuthal modes can be described by coupled Van der Pol oscillators. A criterion based on the thermoacoustic coupling strength and on the asymmetry degree provides the modal behavior in the annular combustor, i.e. standing or traveling waves. The model predictions have been verified by numerical simulations of a heavy-duty gas turbine using an in-house thermoacoustic network-modeling tool. The interaction between the heat release of the flame and the acoustic field was modeled using measured transfer functions and source terms. These numerical simulations confirmed the original theoretical considerations.     

Three-step approach for prediction of limit cycle pressure oscillations in combustion chambers of gas turbines

Currently, gas turbine manufacturers frequently face the problem of strong acoustic combustion driven oscillations inside combustion chambers. These combustion instabilities can cause extensive wear and sometimes even catastrophic damages to combustion hardware. This requires prevention of combustion instabilities, which, in turn, requires reliable and fast predictive tools. This work presents a three-step method to find stability margins within which gas turbines can be operated without going into self-excited pressure oscillations. As a first step, a set of unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations with the Flame Speed Closure (FSC) model implemented in the OpenFOAM® environment are performed to obtain the flame describing function of the combustor set-up. The standard FSC model is extended in this work to take into account the combined effect of strain and heat losses on the flame. As a second step, a linear three-time-lag-distributed model for a perfectly premixed swirl-stabilized flame is extended to the nonlinear regime. The factors causing changes in the model parameters when applying high-amplitude velocity perturbations are analysed. As a third step, time-domain simulations employing a low-order network model implemented in Simulink® are performed. In this work, the proposed method is applied to a laboratory test rig. The proposed method permits not only the unsteady frequencies of acoustic oscillations to be computed, but the amplitudes of such oscillations as well. Knowing the amplitudes of unstable pressure oscillations, it is possible to determine how these oscillations are harmful to the combustor equipment. The proposed method has a low cost because it does not require any license for computational fluid dynamics software.     

On “Radiative transfer in three-dimensional rectangular enclosures containing inhomogeneous, anisotropically scattering media”

Our 1985 paper (JQSRT 1985; 33: 533-549) reported the result of the research we conducted back then to better understand heat transfer processes in large-scale combustion chambers, especially in pulverized coal-fired furnaces. It was one of the first works exploring radiative transfer in three-dimensional enclosures where absorption and scattering coefficients due to combustion particles and gases were allowed to vary within the medium. This flexibility of the mathematical model made it useful for applications to realistic furnaces and different types of high-temperature systems. This note briefly discusses the motivation behind the paper and the immediate extension of the idea to different systems.     

A retrospective view on “3-dimensional radiation in absorbing, emitting and scattering media using discrete-ordinates approximation” by J.S. Truelove

Discrete-ordinates (DO) approximations to the radiative transfer equation in three-dimensional enclosures have extensively been used during the last three decades. The 1988 paper by Truelove [1] is one of the pioneering works in this field wherein traditional DO formulations were adapted to radiative transfer problems, and has impacted both the science and the technology related to large-scale combustion chambers since it was published. The following is a short introduction to this seminal JQSRT paper.     

Vibrations and vortices in combustion chambers

Computational and experimental studies have been made of large-scale vortex structures as sources of acoustic vibrations. Low-frequency sources of vibration in combustion chambers of solid propellant jet engines have been shown to be due to the hydrodynamic instability of large-scale vortex structures in the main gas flow.M. A. Lavrent'ev Institute of Hydrodynamics. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 4, pp. 111–118, April, 1994.